Replies

From: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Jonah Preaches Repentance in Nineveh

[1] Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, [2] ”Arise,
go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” [3]
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now
Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. [4] Jonah
began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he cried, “Yet forty days,
and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

The People of Nineveh Do Penance

[5] And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and put on
sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

[10] When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God re-
pented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did not do it.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

3:1-4:11 The second part of the book has a similar structure to the first—God and
Jonah (3:1-3; cf. 1:1-3); Jonah and Gentiles (3:4-10; cf. 1:4-16); Jonah and God
(4:1-11; cf. 1:17-2:10). However, the reader is now psychologically prepared for
what will happen: Jonah’s preaching will produce the desired result and the Nine-
vites will be converted. So, the story is geared to the last chapter which poses
and solves the question that chapter 3 provokes. The episode described in this
second part is therefore a practical illustration of the scope of God’s mercy. It
was used as such in the debate with the Gnostics who argued that there was a
difference between the good God (the God revealed in the New Testament) and
the God revealed in the Old Testament: “See how the stress is laid on the grea-
test name and quality of God, his Mercy; that is, God is patient with evildoers,
and rich in mercy and compassion for those who recognize their faults and re-
pent them, as the Ninevites did. If such a Being as he is so good, you [...] have
to admit that he can do no evil for, as Marcion himself once said, a good tree
cannot bear bad fruit (Tertullian, “Adversus Marcionem”, 2, 24).

3:1-4. God renews his command to Jonah. And this time Jonah obeys. Maybe
the vows he promised to fulfill in 2:9 had to do with this—going to preach in Nine-
veh. Anyway, the success of his mission is assured, because it depends not on
Jonah but on the Lord: it would take three days to cross Nineveh (v. 3), but he
has only gone one day in his journey and the people convert (cf. 3:5).

3:5-10. The account of the conversion of the Ninevites looks like a straight copy
from other biblical passages, particularly from the prophet Jeremiah: Jeremiah is
the “prophet to the nations” (Jer 1:5), and Jonah is sent to the archetypal Gentile
city. There are many little things in this passage that are reminiscent of Jeremiah:
in the book of Jeremiah, Jerusalem is called the “great city”, which is what Nine-
veh is called here (1:2; 3:2; cf. Jer 22:8-9), and both books have similar turns of
phrase such as “let every one turn from his evil way”, “man and beast”, “from the
greatest to the least” (3:5, 8; cf. Jer 6:13; 8:10; 36:3,7), etc. This passage is par-
ticularly reminiscent of the call for a fast made by Jeremiah in the time of King
Jehoiakim; in Jeremiah 36 we are told how the prophet warned of misfortunes to
come and proclaimed a fast for conversion (Jer 36:9), but the king refused to lis-
ten. Jonah, too, announces the destruction of Nineveh, but it is the Ninevites
themselves who proclaim a general fast, as if God were speaking through them.
Their own king establishes what the fast will involve, and he issues a decree that
sounds just like something a prophet would have said (vv. 7-9; cf. Joel 2:12-14).
Furthermore, the king of the Ninevites seems to be quite familiar with biblical tea-
ching, for he is well aware (cf. Jer 36:3, 9) that displays of penance will not auto-
matically stay God’s hand; the king has a genuine change of heart and is ready
to submit to God (v. 9), and when God sees that these people are ready to mend
their ways he revokes his decision to punish them (v. 10) The episode bears out
Jeremiah’s teaching about repentance (cf. Jer 18 7-8).

The difference between the Ninevites and the Israelites can be seen in the use
that Jesus makes of this passage when he compares his Jewish contemporaries
with their ancestors: “The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this ge-
neration and condemn it for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold
something greater than Jonah is here” (Mt 12:41). It is not surprising, then, that in
Christian tradition, the Ninevites are referred to as a model of repentance ‘Let us
cast our minds back over the history of men, and see how the Lord, in one gene-
ration after another, granted a time of penance to those who desired to be conver-
ted to him. Noah preached salvation, and those who listened to him were saved.
Jonah told the Ninevites that their city would be destroyed and they repented of
their sins and asked God for forgiveness and were saved by the power of their
pleading, even though they were not part of the chosen people” (St Clement of
Rome, “Ad Corinthios”, 7, 5-7).

And another text by a great Father of the Eastern Church says: “Do not dwell on
how little time you have, but on the love of the Master. The inhabitants of Nineveh
cooled God’s wrath in three days. They did not despair at how little time was left
to them; their troubled souls won over the goodness of the Master, and he brought
about their salvation” (St John Chrysostom, “De Incomprehensibile Dei Natura”,
6).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.